Layout and animation can be a huge assets in your presentation if they help tell your story and clarify your data. But if there’s not a fit between your message and your presentation animation, all you’ll end up doing is distracting your audience and confusing your message.

Prezi is a presentation tool with a  spatial layout and “zooming” animation which lets the presenter move in space instead of  slide to slide like  PowerPoint. Originally built by an architect, this format works great for certain specific presentations —but not business presentations.

For Sales & Marketing teams, the important features of a Cloud-based presentation system are access, organization, collaboration and delivery. Prezi offers some of these features, but it makes companies conform to it’s format instead of being flexible enough to let companies tell their own stories. For teams looking to manage their presentations across their organization, they may need to consider an alternative to Prezi.

12 things to keep in mind when using or considering using a tool like Prezi:

1. Prezi’s primary feature is the ability to organize information spatially on a giant canvas and “zoom” around. This makes Prezi a “one-trick-pony” and doesn’t necessarily lend itself to the content or narratives used in corporate presentations.
2. The elements created in Prezi can’t be used in other non-Prezi presentations and the lack of a “slide” structure makes repurposing Prezi content impossible. This is a problem if  you want to reuse or repurpose presentation content for other marketing needs.
3. The Prezi canvas forces a spatial relationship where none may exist. Parts of your presentation in Prezi are spatially related whether it makes sense for the content or not, often creating confusing connections for the audience.
4. Many presenters are not comfortable speaking through a Prezi because of its non-linear nature. In order to give a presentation, presenters must be VERY familiar with all the elements and transitions so they don’t stumble when speaking. Navigating through through an interactive space while trying to connect with the audience and tell your story is a challenge for even the most experienced presenters.
5. The spinning and zooming effects make the viewers dizzy, limiting it’s effectiveness over a longer presentation.
6. Prezi by itself doesn’t make a presentation more engaging or easier to understand. Unless your content specifically needs it, zooming and panning can be incredibly distracting and obscure your message.
7. There aren’t any slide builds available in Prezi for text or images. This is an issue since you can’t easily display change or show how a process works other than through zooming and panning.
8. It is difficult to use custom fonts or other custom elements related to design and branding.
9. All Prezis look very “Prezi-like”—so it makes your presentations look more like Prezi and less like you.
10. You can’t control the environment when a viewer receives a Prezi link. The link you send to your Prezi takes the recipient to Prezi’s site, which can have ads and other Prezi’s on it.
11. No ability to manage Prezi content across your sales teams or enterprise. Since you can’t update numbers or other content the number of revisions can be overwhelming.
12. Since a Prezi presentation isn’t modular (made up of individual slides), it isn’t possible to drag and drop slides from one presentation to another to reuse and share content between presentations.

In the end, different tools are suited for different purposes. Prezi is great at making Prezi’s, but alternatives to Prezi are out there and better suited to business teams. At CustomShow we created our presentation tool focused on the needs of businesses who need to access, organize, collaborate and deliver presentations across their company. We have a slide management library, real-time collaboration, and a slide editor that lets you build branded custom slides.  At CustomShow we are dedicated to helping you make your business’ message engaging, accurate and unforgettable.

The right balance of animation, design and structure will make your presentation interesting and memorable but still keep the message clear. So pick the right tool for your task and the right platform for your team’s presentations. Happy presenting!

Questions? Contact us here!